THE EVOLUTION OF THE FALL FAIR
Supercrawl, running Sept. 12-14, which last year drew more than 100,000 people to James Street North for a carnival of music and art, has exploded in popularity in just five years and put Hamilton on the map. Can it continue to thrive in a competitive fes
YOU’VE NEVER HAD LESS reason to hang with hordes of flesh-and-blood strangers. At home you play music, chat with cyber friends, and watch movies rather than endure a sticky floor and irritating laugh guy at the theatre.
And yet there you are, outdoors with actual people during festival and f air season, scarfing peaches, ribs and beer – but not in that order – and listening to bands whose song selection and volume is beyond your control.
A recent online survey suggested 90 per cent of Hamiltonians attend at least one local festival a year.
Next Friday, Saturday and Sunday more than 100,000 people will gather at Supercrawl, a free three-day carnival of music and art – up from two days last year – anchored on James Street North.
It is not as big as Calgary’s Stampede, Montreal’s Jazz Festival or Toronto’s Pride, which are 10-day events that each attract more than a million people, or even Burlington’s Sound of Music Festival, which runs five days.
It is not yet as iconic a music event as the 31year-old Hillside Festival in Guelph. But in just five years it has exploded in popularity.
Supercrawl will feature more than 50 bands, hundreds of artists, fashion, food and drink, nine art installations, and 60 craft vendors.
Local musicians populate the concert bill, but top-drawer acts come from New York and L.A. – this year some organized their tours around it.
Supercrawl, and the way it has spotlighted the city’s arts and music scene, is the reason Hamilton was picked to host the Juno Awards next March for the first time in 13 years, according to a city tourism official.
Potocic studied business and administration at Western University in London, Ont., but recoiled at a future of wearing a tie and taking orders.
IT FOLLOWS in the tradition of festivals and fall fairs, but is also something uniquely Hamilton.
The question is whether Supercrawl can remain distinctive and successful in a competitive festival market.
End-of-summer events like the Locke Street Festival this weekend, now in its 15th year, remain strong.
Hamilton’s Earthsong festival died. So did Aquafest soon after a bank pulled its sponsorship. Grand Bend on Lake Huron now holds an Aquafest. The Mustard Festival departed four years ago; a new one started in Brooklyn, another ended in Napa Valley.
The decline of the CNE is lamented annually on Toronto talk radio, attendance dropping one-third since its peak in 1978 when it drew 3.6 million people over 20 days; its remaining claim to fame seems to be stomach-churning food. COMMUNITY
FESTIVALS and fairs go back to ancient times. The Roman satirist Juvenal quipped that to hold power, political leaders must offer citizens cheap food and entertainment — what he called panem et
circenses (bread and circuses). While no longer necessary to crush the seeds of revolution, politicians and bureaucrats recognize panem et circenses as powerful economic tools.
Edmonton branded itself the City of Festivals — and so have Montreal, Milwaukee, and Edinburgh, among others.
Consider that Niagara, with all the tourist f are it already boasts, held its first jazz festival last month.
Festivals fly the flag for beer — Hamilton has three beer festivals — and burgers, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, and UFOs in Roswell, New Mexico.
And testicles: the Testicle Festival in Montana celebrates bulls’ testicles or “Rocky Mountain oysters” as locals call them. (Which rather unfortunately invokes the CNE’s controversial Cronut burger. Cro-NUT burger? Never mind.)
They all descend from the country fall fair, which blossomed in the mid-19th century. At harvest time agriculture societies showed off local crops, livestock, and new farming equipment.
Agriculture fairs remained strong after the Second World War when the economy was dominated by farming and 80 per cent of Canadians lived in a rural setting.
Fall fairs in Ancaster and Binbrook — both more than 160 years old — continue to thrive but the number of fall fairs in Ontario is down from 275 to 220, says Marvin Ryder, a McMaster economics professor.
Ryder volunteers each year with his hometown Aylmer Fair, sponsoring the quilting competition. The fair once ran five days, now it’s two. At 55, Ryder is among the youngest of the volunteers.
“Fairs must innovate or die,” he says.
A touch of history and quirk helps. North of Toronto, Kleinberg hosts the Binder Twine Festival.
Back in the late 1800s, hardware store owner Charlie Shaw served up food, drink and entertainment to farmers who came to the village in the fall to purchase twine to bind wheat.
Today, the festival includes crowning the Binder Twine Queen, who must flip pancakes, hammer nails, milk a cow and call a hog. (It’s unclear from the fair website what the queen calls the hog.)
Rockton’s f all f air is a halfhour west of Hamilton on the way to Cambridge, off Highway 8. It brings in 60,000 people for events like the giant pumpkin championship and spelling bee.
“People are looking for a more simplified lifestyle, a nice way to spend their day,” says fair general manager Don Pede. “If you never go to another fair, come to Rockton to get the flavour of good old-fashioned country fun.”
In a sense, country fairs can never be what they were, not when farming and the culture that went with it have faded. In another era, pie eating contests and handsomest carrot pageants were held without irony.
The sign off Highway 8 is an echo, a museum piece: “Rockton’s World’s Fair.” But it works.
As Canadian cities expanded, festivals emerged reflecting urban culture, celebrating jazz and blues, comedy, food, drink, and art.
This last — art — was what led to Supercrawl. EARLY EVENING, the bluegrey sky is nearly drained of colour but heat still radiates off brick walls.
It is the second Friday in August. Rivers of people flow down sidewalks along James Street North. Folks jaywalk but motorists stuck in traffic feel no malice, they want to get out and be part of it. This is Art Crawl.
Buskers play guitars, a pan flute, and some kind of bagpipe. Gord Simmons, decked in shamrock green, channels Bocelli to belt out “Besame Mucho” a cappella.
Art of all stripes, on the sidewalk, in an alley; offbeat stuff for sale in shops including “upcycled” — very James North terminology — items such as a Burt Bacharach album melted into a dish of sorts.
Tank tops, tattoos, golf shirts, grunge, geek chic, flowing dresses, a child in a stroller in a Snow White costume.
“They all want to be part of the community, part of the night,” says John Black, a Hamilton live artist armed with spray cans and canvas.
“It comes through me,” he says of his art. “I don’t think
But in just five years Supercrawl has exploded in popularity and in some ways put Hamilton on the map.
about it, I just know when to stop.”
Unlike seasonal f airs, Art Crawl happens the second Friday of every month.
“It’s just a positive thing,” says crawler John Advento. “It’s nice seeing people vibing together.”
It formed organically — another popular word on James North — with no plan or budget or even vision.
Nearly 10 years ago, two artists started galleries on the then-struggling street and coordinated their openings on a Friday night. It grew from there.
Other cities now hold art crawls — Vancouver, Toronto, Venice Beach, Calif. — but nobody does it monthly.
About four years in, art crawler Tim Potocic was visiting New York City. He noticed multiple blocks closed for an event, right in the middle of crazy busy Manhattan.
What about a giant version of Art Crawl just one weekend a year, closing a couple of blocks?
But we’re getting ahead of the story. For even more organic, you find Supercrawl’s beginnings inside a rough-and-tumble North End tavern and a kid stealing licks on a drum kit.
TIM POTOCIC grew up in suburbia, but his grandparents owned the Picton Tavern. Clientele included bikers and longshoremen. Some stayed over in the hotel upstairs. Young Potocic helped his grandma clean the place.
Bands left equipment in the bar so he played the only unplugged instrument available, smacking away on drums, following Led Zeppelin and the Beatles when grandma turned on the radio.
“Later, she bought me a snare drum and cymbal, and that’s how it started,” says Potocic.
He chats over a latte in the Mezza Café in the Lister Block — a building that is one of the many resurrection stories on James North.
The company he co-owns is around the corner on Wilson Street.
He recently turned 45, but looks and sounds younger; a man who has stuck to his story.
Potocic grew up in Dundas, lived next door to Highland Secondary School and rolled out of bed to the sound of the first bell. His awakening was in downtown Hamilton buying records at Cheapies, Sam’s, Rave and Zap.
He studied business and administration at Western University in London, Ont., but recoiled at a future of wearing a tie and taking orders.
The job he landed after graduation at a big insurance company didn’t last the training period.
His years in London were not without highlights. He worked at London Audio — “which was awesome, I was an audio geek” — and met his future wife, Marnie. He played drums in bands.
He travelled, lived in Israel for a few months, took a couple of courses at the University of Jerusalem in geology. A friend, Gary McMaster, suggested that when Potocic returned to Hamilton he audition for a band he had joined.
In another era, pie eating contests and handsomest carrot pageants were held without irony
Potocic landed the gig as drummer with Tristan Psionic, named after a band member’s dog. One day they would open for Kim Mitchell at Festival of Friends in Gage Park, and in Vancouver the L.A. band Weezer — who went on to huge success — opened for them.
In 1993, two of the founding members, Mark Milne and Sandy McIntosh, started their own record label. Potocic joined; each member put in $2,000.
“I told my dad and he thought I was crazy.”
They dubbed cassettes in Milne’s parents’ basement. Milne pulled a Spanish onion from the fridge, McIntosh drew their logo. They called it Sonic Unyon Recording Co.
Not content to play gigs and run a record label, they organized a music festival and named it after Gary McMaster’s habit of wearing wool socks: Woolstock.
The first, in Burlington, went nicely. They planned a second in Pelham; it was even publicized on MuchMusic. But on the eve of the show, Woolstock ran aground when the city took them to court for failing to get approvals.
There was Potocic, sheepish, taken to task in a judge’s chambers.
Judge: “What on Earth do you think you’re doing holding this without obtaining permissions? This is not happening, young man.”
Potocic: “OK.” Undaunted, they drained Sonic Unyon’s bank account and rented a harbour boat in Toronto for a floating music festival. Luckily, they sold all 550 tickets. Potocic would love to host a similar event in Hamilton Harbour if they can get a big enough boat.
“We need a barge. There are some we can rent. We’ll see.”
Sonic Unyon got big. Trucks dropped off skids of CDs in their parents’ driveway. It outgrew their careers as musicians and festival promoters.
In 1996, they bought the building at 22 Wilson St., thanks to Sam Manson, who owned Sam Manson Sports there. He gave them a sweet deal.
“He is one of those Hamiltonians — he felt bad that his building was sitting empty. … I owe a lot to him,” says Potocic.
Potocic and Milne remain coowners. McIntosh became an architect; the Saturn-like ringed onion he sketched still graces the sign over the office.
They rent space to tenants, including a painter, film company, and Environment Hamilton.
It was about eight years ago when Potocic was in New York and got the idea to hold a giant version of Art Crawl. Back in Hamilton, he sat with a community group to talk it over. What to call the new event?
“We had that history of quirky names … I said how about Supercrawl, and they said let’s run with that.”
Sonic Unyon runs Supercrawl, which this year has a budget of $750,000, including $350,000 to pay musicians. Potocic is Supercrawl director and spends most of his time yearround organizing the event.
He never did wear a tie to work. It would look odd indeed in their office, which has the feel of a rec-room.
An old promotional poster hangs on the wall for Woolstock: “The hottest outdoor concert event of the summer.”
“The first Supercrawl!” YOU WON’T FIND nostalgia rock acts at Supercrawl like April Wine (CNE), Platinum Blonde (London’s Western Fair) or Trooper (Burlington’s Sound of Music Festival).
Supercrawl shoots for edgy. Keep the Hamilton-content quotient high and offer the best — and current — performers from far and wide.
Potocic raves about soul artists from Brooklyn, N.Y., under the Daptone record label who will play the main stage Sunday. They are not household names up here, but he promises they will blow people away.
He dreams of closing blocks for Supercrawl all the way from James Street at the base of the Mountain south to the harbour.
For now, his team is developing plans that could double attendance in the next three to five years.
Potocic adds there is such a thing as getting too big.
“Geography is important, how we spread the event. You can affect the experience if you have too many people, although that’s not a bad problem to have. … We want to maintain the organic, casual nature of it so people feel safe when they come. We’ve never had one incident. A lot of that has to do with it being a Hamilton festival. About 75 per cent of the people who came last year were from Hamilton.”
Those who long for the days when Art Crawl was just a handful of diehard art lovers no doubt feel Supercrawl is already too big.
But it seems unlikely it will get bloated and lose its way so long as the Tristan Psionic DNA is dominant.
For example, while the event is supported in part by corporate sponsors, Potocic’s team refuses to sell Supercrawl’s name, which is trademarked. It would mean big bucks. It is tempting.
TD Festival of Friends at the Ancaster Fairground has a name sponsor, so does Ottawa’s RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest.
Nothing wrong with that, says Potocic, but it’s not where they want to go.
Some day, they might do a “presented by” deal — Sound of Music is presented by Tim Hortons — but he vows they will never become the Big Bank Supercrawl or Cable Giant Supercrawl.
And they say they would never leave the core. In theory, moving to a wide open space with easy highway access could turn it into an even bigger event. But they know that would kill the event’s soul.
Bill Powell, who founded several Hamilton festivals over the years, laments that his baby, Festival of Friends, is no longer in Gage Park. To him, place was the thing. He wishes the name changed when it left.
Supercrawl brings people to town and is good for downtown businesses, which is why the city contributes funding to market and supports the event. A report prepared for the city said last year’s Supercrawl generated $8.8 million in economic impact by visitors.
And yet there is a strain of idealism running through Supercrawl that transcends numbers.
Organizers hand-pick everything, including food vendors, focusing on local food trucks that must be plugged in for their power to prevent exhaust and noise pollution. There is no midway or rides.
“As much as I love a bouncy castle now and again, we don’t do that type of thing,” Potocic says with a grin. Kids can come down and “make something with their hands, attend a story, see a performer that’s different than a clown with balloons.”
Together with the Hamilton Conservatory for the Arts, they will bus about 2,500 elementary school kids to James North on Friday morning before the event kicks off for a Supercrawl field trip, visit galleries, and take in some art.
In an age where entire families are handcuffed to their touch screens and the most mundane of events recorded, a festival done well creates a genuine experience — and an inexpensive one.
“Our credo has always been about being there: ‘You gotta see this band live!’ You have to be out there. That’s real life.”
Potocic talks of creating an atmosphere of discovery, of Supercrawl inspiring “Ah!” moments. This is the stuff that warms the heart of Bill Powell, a true believer in the power of festivals, who was impressed with Supercrawl when he went last year.
“It has to have meaning,” Powell says. “When we started we wanted to teach about Canadian music and art, make it a participatory event, not just a place to drink and have a party … so you can walk through with your kids and come out of it with an impression, something you talk about for weeks. In a sense, festivals have lost their beauty and naivety.”
If Powell sounds wistful, it’s perhaps because he soon turns 76 and is “winding down,” as he puts it, enjoying the late innings of life.
But then fairs in the fall, even one as pumped with energy as Supercrawl, are in part about wistfulness, following as they do the lengthening shadows of August and cool September mornings.
It is why we are drawn to them, to feel the music and toast the colour and magic of the season, knowing that clocks are ticking, trying to make it last.